Thursday, June 08, 2006

A Big Day of Rooting and Crashing

by Jim Preston

On May 23rd, 2006 Dave Melson and I, of the Maryland Roots Project had a big day in the Nation's Capitol. We spent the morning in the offices of the Foreign Relations Staffers of Maryland Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski, and then spent the afternoon helping deliver copies of Crashing the Gate to Democratic House and Senate Members of Congress. We were hungry, tired, happy, and quite exhilarated by the end of the day and were proud to have been involved.

The legislative meetings that Dave and I had set up were based around trying to get more information about the state of the administration's plans regarding Iran. We also wanted to share our ideas about the Iranian situation. We felt that the staffers on the hill already knew what the activists had to say, so we would treat it more as an information-sharing session that as a straight advocacy session. This approach worked very well for us, as we had very interesting discussions and I think everybody learned something. Another friend of mine who is a senior staffer told me later that this was the best approach to take, as nobody really wants to set up a meeting just to get yelled at with talking points that they have already heard a thousand times.

Our first meeting of the day was with Mariah Sieber, a Legislative Assistant to Senator Paul Sarbanes, Maryland's longest-serving Senator, who plans to retire this year. Sen. Sarbanes is most visible for his work on the Senate Banking Committee, but has traditionally been an anti-war voice and works quite hard behind the scenes to slow down the Bush agenda. Ms. Sieber described the Senator's frustration at the fact that, here at the end of his career, he is forced to spend all of his time and energy trying to stop the Republicans from accomplishing their goals instead of trying to do something positive for his country. Ms. Sieber was incredibly engaged and knowledgable about Iran and the rest of the Middle East. She explained to us that it seemed that the administration might begin to accept more direct negotiation with Iran. Events over the last few weeks have demonstrated that the administration is willing to at least attempt to make the appearance of trying to negotiate with Iran. Of course, since the US policy towards Iran is still "regime change", there is a lot of doubt about what value these negotiations could have. Ms. Sieber described a little bit of the issue of "power centers" in Central Asia that we don't hear much about. For example, the US nuclear deal with India is related to providing a balance to China, which all sounds good, until she explains that China will very likely offer a similar deal to Pakistan. She also described the devolving situation in Russia, which is falling apart socially and economically and is slipping back into totalitarian rule. As you begin to understand a little more about the Asian landmass, full of these diverse, troubled, states, lots of oil resources, and a rather large number of nuclear weapons, you get a pretty strong feeling that cooler heads than Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld ought to be dealing with the situation.

An important point that Ms. Sieber brought up with us were that some (Zionist?) groups like to lobby congress wearing pins that say "The Time is Now". These pins purport to answer the question, "When should the US invade Iran?" Another important point was that Sen. Hagel needed more Republican support for limiting unsupervised funds that are being put into Iranian regime-change efforts to fend off neo-con messianic terrorism funding by the likes of Sen. Santorum. Like almost all mainstream thinkers, Ms. Sieber recommends that sanctions be used as the "stick" in the negotiations with Iran. I don't really see what the benefits of sanctions are myself, but she felt that it was important for the US to have a negative stance toward a country like Iran that participates in ethnic and religous persecution.

Our second meeting was with Carol Chuhta, a staffer for Senator Barbara Mikulski, who also voted against the Iraq war resolution. At this point, we were somewhat talked-out, since niether Dave nor I is used to going to meetings all the time. However, we were able to keep our composure enough to learn that Sen. Mikulski favors a strong reconstruction effort in Iraq (which of course isn't working out because of the security situation). She also does not think that regime change is a very viable policy toward Iran. Sen. Mikulski supports the IAEA, and multi-lateral diplomatic talks with Iran. She is a strong supporter of non-proliferation. Like the rest of us, Ms. Chuhta cannot find the line between what is politics and what is policy in the administration's stance toward Iran.

On the whole, we were very impressed by the level of knowledge and interest that both of these women demonstrated and we felt that they were doing an excellent job staying abreast of the situation. You won't find many people "on the inside" in DC who are as anti-war as I am, but it was good to hear that there are folks who are not at all interested in glorifying and expanding the war.

After we left these meetings, Dave and I headed out toward the House office buildings, hoping to see a confused gang of Rooters schlepping a dolly of books around. I had originally planned to bring the books to the Capitol in my car, but Jay and the group had made other plans, so Dave and I were on a mission to hook up with them and do an activity that involved more walking than talking. Our visual inspection technique was not productive, and a few cell-phone calls later, we found ourselves in a House Office with Jay, Edrie, Matt, and quite a big pile of books. The books were all labeled and in order, and Edrie was the super-guide, who pointed us to the elevators, maps, tunnels, and secret passageways. I didn't listen too carefully to her directions, because the only way I know how to learn my way around is to get lost and then find my way home, but her help was appreciated. Dave and I decided to stick together and we set off with a few books each for our initial deliveries.

Most of the deliveries we made were just to the front desk of the various representatives' offices. We gave our little speech about how the book was a manifesto on grassroots, netroots, and people-powered politics in the information age, and moved on. Our warmest reception occurred at the office of Darlene Hooley (OR-5) (photo above). Rep. Hooley had had some interesting interactions with bloggers from blueoregon.com, and wanted to make a good impression with us. Her Legislative Director, Joan Mooney Evans, let us know that Rep. Hooley really wanted to meet us and get a picture so we waited for a few minutes until she got back from another meeting. They were all very nice, and Rep. Hooley was really great. She is very down-to-earth and enjoys a good laugh. She regaled us with stories about her appearance on Colbert, which I was excited to be able to pass on to my kids. We were all laughing about "The Fightin' Fifth" as we took the picture and went on our merry way. We also had a very pleasant reception at the offices of Grace Napolitano (CA-38). Her IT director was very excited to make contact with us, probably thinking that we were a little closer to the top of the food chain in DKos-dom, but was very pleasant and happy about the book.

We had quite a bit of fun creeping around the House offices and got to peek into the offices of some pretty exciting people. I was especially honored to deliver the book to the offices of Maxine Waters, Dennis Kucinich, and John Lewis. The first two of these are, of course, two of the strongest and bravest anti-war voices in the House, and Rep. Lewis has been called "one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced". Now that's what I call a compliment!

After our House deliveries, we dragged ourselves over to the Dirksen and Hart Senate buildings, got a new load of books, and forged ahead. The Senate offices are bigger and more spread out than the House offices, but there aren't as many of them. This was good news as everybody's feet were getting pretty tired (except Dave, who has country-boy energy and a kayaking construction-worker's physique). In the Senate offices, we didn't have any contact with the Senators, although we did have the honor of delivering books to the offices of Sen Feingold, Sen. Byrd, and, if I recall correctly, Sen. Boxer. Sen. Feinstein's office has a strict no-gift policy, which is reasonable enough, given the stench of corruption that has been emanating from the hill recently. (Ed: We mailed the book to Senator Feinstein afterwards.)

When we were done with the deliveries, Dave and I had to head out and miss the final meetings, but we felt that we had had a very exciting and involved day in Washington. I hadn't yet received my own copy of Crashing the Gate, but I have read it since then. I find the analysis fairly thin, but it was not meant to be an academic work. I certainly can't argue with the success that Kos and Jerome have had in reaching out and getting more people involved in progressive politics. I really hope to see the blogospere engage in more meaningful dialogue with other progressive elements such as the anti-war movement. I don't think that anyone can deny that there are some turf battles going on in the blogosphere that serve no purpose. I'm no expert on the blogosphere, but I have been involved with open-source software and the internet for almost twenty years. This is not the first time that a "new paradigm" has "changed everything", nor will it be the last. Sometimes the real genius is to see what it is that hasn't changed. Probably twenty years from now, there will be stodgy web-veterans making lots of money showing campaigns how to do things "the way it's always been done" and telling them that that's the only way to do it. We should all save our copies of Crashing the Gate to beat each other over the head with if we're the ones complaining about another "new media" Crashing the Gates of our "Sacred Mainstream Blogosphere"!

Thanks to Jay, Matt/Philo, Edrie, and the rest of the CtG team for making the event happen. I hope to see you all in DC on September 21, 2006 to celebrate the International Day of Peace.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

After Action Report: Success!

Today members of the Roots Project delivered a copy of Crashing the Gate to every Democrat in the House and Senate. Two hundred and forty-nine offices in one day by no more than a dozen people. Last night a handful of volunteers met at PoliticsTV's office to insert personalized bookplates into every copy of the book and then sorted them by building, floor, and room number, a critical step that allowed us to complete all of our work today. I left New York City with three other Roots Project volunteers, including organizer Jay Ackroyd, from Penn Station at 5:30 am and arrived in Washington at around 9 am. We headed over to the PoliticsTV office and met up with David Grossman, producer and cameraman extraordinaire, who had already loaded all 249 copies of the book into his car. We then proceeded to the Capitol South Metro stop, where we met up with the DC/MD/VA area volunteers. Again, I don't think this action would have succeeded if we didn't have eight local volunteers handing out books with us; we had expected a smaller DC area showing.

We ran into a major problem trying to enter Rayburn HOB. It turns out you aren't allowed to give books to all of Congress at once, without one constitutent per book. A sergeant of the Capitol Police was very helpful at suggesting a way around the rules when he heard the purpose of our visit to the Hill. Fortunately for us, a friend in a high place was able to escort us in and provide a base for our operations (sorry folks, the identity of our mystery savior must remain secret).

We started in the House Office Buildings with twelve volunteers plus David Grossman, our remarkably helpful and knowledgable cameraman/producer from PoliticsTV. David proved himself invaluable at every juncture of our action - before, during, and after. Though we weren't able to start delivering books until 12:30pm, we had strong numbers and a drive to get the job done. Offices came and went, books were delivered, conversations of all sorts were struck up between Roots Project volunteers and friendly Democratic staffers and interns.

It's not surprising to say that a major obstacle in my ability to accurately and fully recount the days events is the size of our action. We delivered 249 books to 249 House and Senate offices. We started with twelve people and finished with six. I couldn't even tell you how many books I delivered, though I'd guess it's somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.

[Editorial moment: We essentially delivered the books randomly - little forethought was given to who gave to each congressperson. Not one book out of all the books I delivered was for a woman legislator. My delivery was predominantly random, yet women are so under-represented in the halls of Congress I was not able to hand over a book destined for a woman. This isn't exactly news, but it was a hard fact for me to miss.]

I also doubt we could have finished our day's work if we'd started even half an hour later. The frantic, yet fruitful, nature of the delivery process (think ants on a carcass or bees on honey) prevented us from truly taking stock of our experience as the day went on. Once we started, the action had such inertia that we never had a chance to come up for air. We didn't get to debrief or recap what was working, where our most positive experiences were, and who we'd met that was most enthusiastic. I would have loved to have the ability to get more feedback from our awesome crew of volunteers throughout the day - hopefully the next major Roots Project action budgets for more evaluation time during the course of the event.

I want to take the time to say that of all the offices I visited, the ones in which I had the most positive, welcoming, faith inspiring experiences were of North Dakota Rep. Earl Pomeroy, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), Rep. Ed Markey (MA-7), and Rep. Adam Smith (WA-9). Jay Ackroyd says his most positive experience came at Rep. Louise Slaughter's (NY-28) office, not that it surprised him!

For me, though, the most positive experience came with my interactions with Rep. Pete Stark's (CA-13) staff. I went in and gave my now well-practiced schtick about our group, our action, and why we think Crashing the Gate is such an important book for politicians and their staff to read. After leaving my copy with the woman at the front desk, I left Stark's office and proceeded on my way. I didn't get far before I got a call explaining Senator Dodd had to cancel his meeting with us (more on that below). I hung up the phone and before I could move on to my next stop felt a tap on my shoulder. A young man introduced himself as Yoni Cohen, Congressman Stark's press secretary. Mind you, I'd been out of Starks office for at least three minutes and made it about thirty feet down the hall. Yoni had chased me down to talk about the book and find out more about the action. I chatted with him for about five minutes and left gratified that a congressional aide thought enough of our efforts to even attempt to follow me down the hall to talk.

Our group had three notable meetings at the end of the day.

Our last meeting was with Jay, myself, and Rep. John Conyers' (MI-14) Internet Communications Director Jonathan Godfrey. Jonathan had arranged a meeting with Congressman Conyers, but it was never able to come to fruition due to a busy schedule on his end. We had a good talk with Jonathan - but we all know that Conyers is one of the few Democrats who has seriously engaged the netroots and spoke to the Democratic base. This copy of CTG wasn't so much as an introduction for the Congressman as it was a "thank you."

Jay and I also had a long, interesting meeting with Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd's Chief of Staff, Sheryl Cohen, and Media Technology Director, Tim Cullen. Four other RPers were there at the start of the meeting before Sheryl arrived, but they had to leave to meet with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL-20) (again, more below). Tim arranged our meeting -- he was the only Democratic staffer in all of Congress to reach out to the Roots Project in the last week to schedule a rendezvous between our volunteers and his boss. Our meeting was originally going to be with Senator Dodd himself, but unbeknownst to us, Dodd announced his presidential candidacy last night in the Hartford Courant. Our conversation with Sheryl and Tim was productive and engaging. Sheryl was great - a bit of a novice vis a vis the blogosphere, but wanting to learn and to get her Senator involved. Tim is exactly the sort of staffer I'd love to see in every Democratic office - tech savvy, big-time blog reader, and willing to push his coworkers on the importance of blogs and blogging. Jay and I left with big smiles knowing that we'd provided a strong and positive impression at the highest levels of a senate office (and presidential candidate to boot).

Our groups last most notable meeting was one that I wasn't present for. Four RP volunteers met with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and her Communications Director, Jonathan Beeton. I can't provide all the details for it, but the meeting ran an hour and a half long! Expect some fantastic video footage (shot by RagingGurrl) of the meeting within the next couple of days...I can't wait to see it myself. I hope someone who was present will post a report in the comments, as I don't think I can possibly do it justice. Sorry readers, the best report will have to remain untold for now.

I wish I could recognize more people by name and more offices that showed our volunteers the utmost respect and interest, but again there are just way too many stories to report that I haven't heard yet. All in all, I'd say 95% of our experiences were tremendously positive. Common responses ranged from courteous and welcoming at the low end, to genuinely enthusiastic about our work, the book, and the blogosphere on whole. Many staff members knew we were coming and were looking forward to receiving their gift. The only interactions that were less than positive, to my knowledge, were negative solely for the apathy shown by the individuals at the front desk - hardly a crime when you work in the hectic environment of Capitol Hill.

I'm exhausted - this action was conceived about three weeks ago. All 249 books were delivered to every Democrat in the House and Senate less than a week after the action was announced on FireDogLake. It's been a whirlwind of emails, phone calls, blogging, traveling, and today hundreds of office visits and dozens of miles walked around Capitol Hill. But this is how open source lobbying will work. Good ideas will get put into action by people who believe in them and want to organize.

This action couldn't have happened without the hard work of Jay Ackroyd, David Grossman of PoliticsTV, Mike Link and a few others from Politics & Prose, Edgery, RagingGurrl, Paradox65, redshift, all the other volunteers who made it to the Hill today, Beau Friedlander and Margo Baldwin of Chelsea Green, Mike Jane Hamsher, Christy Hardin Smith, Pachacutec, John Amato, Glenn Greenwald, SusanG, Kos, Jerome Armstrong, all the Roots Project members who helped with press calls, and of course every single one of you who donated a copy of Crashing the Gate. I hope that I can say safely that I put some good work into this action, too.

Check out some pics from the action on my flickr feed, though most of them as of now are of pictures taken Monday night during the insertion of bookplates into each copy of CTG.

Based on the suggestions of MissLaura and grrtigger in the comments at DailyKos, please do one last thing to help this action be a success:

Please, if your representative and senators are Democrats call them up and ask them to read their new copy of Crashing the Gate! Calling them today can really push this to a new level of success and show how important it is that they understand more about the netroots. Thanks!

Washington, DC – Citizens from around the east coast descended on Washington Tuesday to hand deliver copies of Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas to every Democratic member of the House and Senate.

"We're anxious to build bridges between the netroots and our representatives, and we hope that Markos' and Jerome's brilliant and influential book will be an effective way to open those lines of communication," said Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com.

“We wanted to introduce our national representatives to the blogosphere through Crashing the Gate, so they will become more cognizant of the role blogs play in American politics,” organizer Jay Ackroyd said, “The netroots is becoming a stronger force every day.”

Two hundred and fifty copies of Crashing the Gate, published by Chelsea Green in March, were donated one at a time by Americans from around the country in less than two days. Politics & Prose, a non-partisan, independent bookstore based in Washington, provided the infrastructure to allow people to contribute copies of the book.

Crashing the Gate is written by Jerome Armstrong, founder of MyDD.com and Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos.com. It has become a rallying cry for the resurgence of people-powered politics. Tuesday’s event exemplified the capacity blogs have as a political organizing tool.

The action was organized by individuals loosely associated under The Roots Project, a grassroots action network that originated on the blogs FireDogLake, Crooks & Liars, and Unclaimed Territory by Glenn Greenwald.To date, Roots Project chapters exist in forty-three states around the country. The Roots Project has focused it efforts on the issues of government accountability, warrantless surveillance, net neutrality, preemptive military action against Iran, and the censure of President George W. Bush.

Washington, DC – Citizens from around the east coast will descend on Washington Tuesday, May 23rd, to hand deliver copies of Crashing the Gate by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas to every Democrat in the House and Senate.

"We're anxious to build bridges between the netroots and our representatives, and we hope that Markos' and Jerome's brilliant and influential book will be an effective way to open those lines of communication," said Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com.

Two hundred and fifty copies of Crashing the Gate were donated one at a time by Americans from around the country in less than two days. Politics & Prose, a non-partisan, independent bookstore based in Washington, provided the infrastructure to allow people to contribute copies of the book.

Crashing the Gate is written by two of the hottest Democratic bloggers. It has become a rallying cry for the resurgence of people-powered politics. Tuesday’s event will exemplify the power blogs have as a political organizing tool.

The action is organized by individuals loosely associated under The Roots Project, a grassroots action network that originated on the blogs FireDogLake (firedoglake.com), Crooks & Liars (crooksandliars.com), and Unclaimed Territory (glenngreenwald.blogspot.com).

To date, Roots Project chapters exist in forty-three states around the country. The Roots Project has focused it efforts on the issues of government accountability, warrantless surveillance, net neutrality, preemptive military action against Iran, and the censure of President Bush.

For more information on this action visit: http://ctgproject.blogspot.com

WHO: Concerned citizens, blog readers, and their elected representatives in Congress

WHAT: Hand delivery of Crashing the Gate to every Democrat in the House and Senate

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

250 books have been donated...On to delivery!

We did it.

Netroots activists have donated 250 books to The Roots Project's "Crashing the Gate" action in less than two days. Thank you to everyone who donated a book and to everyone who has volunteered to help deliver them to Congress. Thanks to Pachacutec, Christy, and Jane for continuing to give our action top billing at FDL and special thanks to Jerome and SusanG for posting about the action on MyDD and DailyKos today. Thanks to Politics & Prose for hosting the sale and giving us such a great discount.

Before we deliver the books to our Democratic representatives in Congress we'll be taking a few steps to ensure that this action has a lasting impact in the halls of Congress.

First, we will be inserting personalized book plates into each copy of "Crashing the Gate" with a brief explanation of why the book was donated and who donated it. Every time a senator, congressperson, or their aides open the book they will know that it was donated by The Roots Project, citizens who want their representatives to wake up to the importance of the netroots and join our movement.

We will also be reaching out to senators and representatives to schedule face-time during the course of our deliveries. The good folks of PoliticsTV will be filming our day of action and hopefully we're hoping some elected officials will be able to receive our gifts in person and on camera. Whenever possible we will have our volunteers delivery copies of "Crashing the Gate" to their representatives.

We will also be reaching out to DC's traditional media. We want to give them the opportunity to cover a real grassroots action that originated on the blogosphere. Unfortunately we do not currently have access to a DC area media blast fax list - if you have access to this information and would like to share it with The Roots Project, please email "mbrownerhamlin AT goowy.com"

We're going to have about twenty volunteers delivering books on our day of action. There are 245 offices that we need to go and we'll be breaking down into smaller teams to cover the most ground. We're hoping to do the delivery next week - if you would like to help, email "jay AT ackroyd.org" or IM me on AIM at MattFreeTibet.

The volunteers will be split in five groups of four and directed to the different House and Senate office buildings. They'll have the personalized books and a specific set of offices that they'll be visiting. With 245 gifts to deliver, we expect the action to take a full day. Right now we're looking for volunteers who can commit to working - and walking - for eight hours. Once we have our volunteer staff lined up we'll do our best to incorporate individuals who are only able to visit their representative's office.

Thank you all for your support thus far and for everything the netroots will be doing to support this action moving forward.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Crashing the Gate

ALL 250 COPIES OF CRASHING THE GATE THAT WE NEED FOR OUR ACTION HAVE BEEN DONATED!

I am breaking the links below to prevent further sales. Thank you all so, so much for your rapid response and your support.

--Matt & Jay

There are some commenters over at Kos who are confused by the ordering process. Just follow the instructions. Every book marked Instore pickup WILL go to the project. We're sorry this is cumbersome, but we did want to involve a local indy bookstore. Feel free to email me with questions. Thanks!!

Here are the instructions from Politics & Prose for donating a book to the CtGproject:

Politics & Prose will be offering all participants in the FDL-Crashing the Gate action 37% off the retail price of the book. All participants should select the "Instore Pick-Up" option and then enter their credit card information. All sales are processed by our bookstore staff -- so the discount will be given when they ring up the sale, and will therefore not be reflected on the online total but will be reflected on your charged total when you receive your bill. Your cost will be about 16 dollars, not the 25 dollars that shows up on the ordering page.

And here's the link (link removed upon success!).

To volunteer to deliver books to Capitol Hill, send email to jay@ackroyd.org or send an instant message to the AIM screenname MattFreeTibet.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Updates Below

The Roots Project has begun to make the influence of the blogosphere felt through off-line actions. We have called local radio shows, written letters to the editor, delivered rubber stamps to Arlen Specter, and met with our representatives in Congress. Every day, Roots Project groups around the country are developing new tactics that will become the playbook for open source lobbying. FireDogLake has announced the next Roots Project action, one that I've been helping put together!

It's time to invite the Democrats in Washington to join OUR party. What better introduction to the netroots to provide our representatives with than Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulistas Zuniga's Crashing the Gate. It is our hope that by introducing politicians to the blogosphere through Crashing the Gate, they will become more open to and more cognizant of the role blogs now play in American political discourse -- and how we're becoming a stronger force every day.

The Roots Project is going to hand delivery a copy of Crashing the Gate to every Democrat in the House and Senate on behalf of everyone who believes our elected representatives should be aware of the importance of people-powered politics.

What we need you to do is to donate a copy of Crashing the Gate by following this link (link removed, we've succeeded!). Politics & Prose, an independent bookstore in DC, has agreed to sell the book to us at a 37% discount. Once 245 copies of the book have been donated, we'll take them directly to our representatives.

We also need volunteers to help us deliver the books. If you're interested in helping out with the delivery, please email "jay AT ackroyd.org". You can also IM on AIM at the screenname MattFreeTibet.